Over the last several years the use of mobile phones has become ubiquitous. Mobile phones, especially the so-called smartphones that enable not only voice but also data communications including emailing and texting and typically have touch-screens responsive to a user's touch, are carried by people virtually everywhere they go. Indeed, people continuously checking emails and texts and looking for information on the internet using smartphones has now become a widespread, universally-recognizable cultural phenomenon.
The ubiquity of smartphone usage introduces a number of problems as well. First, it is not uncommon for a user to drop his or her phone, causing breakage. The user must then either continue to use the broken phone, have it replaced if insured, or purchase a replacement if it is not insured. It would therefore be desirable to have some way to make the dropping of these smartphones less likely.
Second, especially in public places, and on public transportation such as busses and subways and trains where people are in close physical proximity, there are a substantial number of incidents of smartphone theft. In both 2013 and 2014, over 2 million smartphone thefts were reported in the United States alone. (http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/news/2015/06/smartphone-thefts-on-the-decline/index.htm) Often, these thefts are in the form of “snatch and run,” in which the thief takes advantage of the way in which smartphone users are often inattentive to their physical environment, and rather are focusing on their smartphone screens. This creates dangers beyond just the economic loss from the theft, because of the prospect that the victim will react by attempting to confront the thief, and the risk that this will give rise to physical violence. It would therefore also be desirable to make it much more difficult for a thief to snatch a smartphone from a user's hand, and by raising the difficulty, to deter such thefts in the first place.
While making the dropping of a phone less likely and raising the difficulty of a phone snatch, it is desirable to still enable the phone to be situated in the user's hand in the usual way, so that the ordinary usage of the smartphone is unimpeded. It should remain just as simple as always to talk on the phone, and to interact with the phone through the touch screen.
U.S. Pat. No. 9,038,871 discloses a so-called “glove” construction and kit for carrying outfitted electronic devices. As seen in FIG. 5, this device comprises a series of “finger-receiving sleeves 22” (column 4 lines 15-16) into which the user's fingers are inserted in order to carry the electronic device. These are attached to the electronic device at “matable fastening junction sites 17” (column 4 line 39), and it is disclosed that this “may be exemplified by VELCRO® brand hook and loop type fastening material (column 4 lines 28-30).” However, this configuration is problematic when it comes to considering smartphones and the way in which smartphones are used and the prevention of “snatch and run” thefts:
First, because of the impermanence of the attachment at the “matable fastening junction sites 17,” this device is ineffective for preventing theft. A “snatch and run” thief would need to simply refine his or her snatch method to account for the need to separate the VELCRO® hooks from the loops, i.e., to separate the two mated VELCRO® halves. Second, the fitting around the fingers in the manner taught in U.S. Pat. No. 9,038,871 is actually dangerous. If, for hypothetical example, one were to replace the “matable fastening junction sites 17” with a permanent junction to eliminate the possibility of separation (which is permanent junction is not taught or suggested or motivated by U.S. Pat. No. 9,038,871), then it is easy to see from FIG. 5 that a hard yank on the electronic device by a thief could very easily break the user's fingers. So the so-called “glove” configuration actually taught in U.S. Pat. No. 9,038,871, while perhaps helpful to avoid dropping the device, is not only unhelpful for preventing theft, but is dangerous were it to be used as a theft prevention method. In this way, U.S. Pat. No. 9,038,871 actually teaches away from possible safer theft-prevention configurations. And in fact, there is no disclosure or suggestion or motivation in U.S. Pat. No. 9,038,871 that this invention might be used to prevent theft.
In fact, careful review reveals that much of the prior art for attaching electronic devices to a user to avoid dropping makes use of an attachment about the fingers, see, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 8,480,144; 8,528,798; 8,561,862; 8,833,620; 8,833,820; 8,887,970; 9,198,307; 9,226,567; D716,287; D735,695; and US pre-grant publications 2005/0205623; 2010/0222118; 2012/0031937; and 2014/0217135. However, given that fingers can be broken during a “snatch and run” attempt if the configurations of these disclosures were employed, it is noteworthy that there is no disclosure or suggestion or motivation in any of these documents either, that these configurations might be employed to prevent theft. All of these are simply carrying/anti-dropping aids, which may be used in a safe environment but which it would be inadvisable to use in an environment where the device may be prone to a “snatch and run.”
A few patent documents, such as US 2015/0335138, are intended specifically for preventing theft, but are of the traditional variety of a case attached via a strap to a portion of the user's body. Indeed, ever since permanent straps or chains connected between a carrier's wrist and a carrying case have been used to prevent articles inside the carrying case from being snatched from the carrier, it has been understood that attaching materials to be protected from theft to some part of a user's body is a helpful security measure.
A number of prior art documents do attach electronic devices to the user's wrist or to other parts of the user's hand, but using straps or other cumbersome configuration which are unwieldy to mount, and/or which would not properly place a smartphone in a position to be operated with the user's other hand in an ergonomically natural manner. Examples of this include U.S. Pat. No. 6,796,467 (wrist straps); U.S. Pat. Nos. 7,469,809; 8,191,210; 8,567,832; 8,579,112; 8,783,533; and 9,010,595; (hand straps); U.S. Pat. Nos. 8,328,055; 8,474,669; and 8,714,421 (wristband); U.S. Pat. No. 8,662,362 (arm straps); U.S. Pat. No. 8,714,422 (wrist and finger straps); D745,014 (hand, thumb and wrist straps); and D749,592 (hand/finger straps); as well as pre-grant publications 2008/0017678; 2012/0255978 (wristband); 2014/0091116; 2015/0173497; 2015/0335137 (hand strap).
In view of the crowded art in this area of practice, the question whether some particular such security method which attaches a device to be protected to some part of a user's body, is patentable, i.e. novel and non-obvious/inventive, centers on the particular circumstances of the materials to be protected, the manner in the carrier may wish or need to access those materials while they are being carried, the best mode of bodily attachment for those materials in view of the above, the simplicity and ease of bodily attachment and detachment, and the proper ergonomic positioning of the device being carried and protected.
So when it comes to smartphones, the goal in not merely to prevent theft by attaching these phone to the user in some way. Rather, the goal is to prevent theft while the user is following the customary behavioral pattern of holding a smartphone in the palm of one hand, and using the other hand to operate the phone via its touch screen, all while being inattentive to the people in the nearby physical environment. All of these circumstances make the smartphone particularly vulnerable to a “snatch and run” theft. And, a further goal is to do this safely, so that the price of preventing a “snatch and run” is not a broken hand for the user.
Thus, it is important to find specific configurations for a device, system and method to make the smartphone inseparable from the user while the smartphone is being held in the user's hand and being used in the customary manner in a populated environment, and to do so a manner that is protective of the phone and of the user. The prior art to date, does not appear to disclose, suggest or motivate a good solution for these problems.